Corruption Of The Coven
by Tiggz90
Summary: When rules are set in place, meant to keep things forbidden, what will happen when those rules are broken? Rated M for mature scenes and language. Please rate & review.
1. Chapter 1

Annalynn, Madison, Scarlet, Jessica, Lauren, Stephanie, Galleria, Christy, Analise, and Savanna were all running around the house getting ready for a night out, the girls would run from one room to the other, half naked or fully dressed, applying makeup or just getting out of the bath or a hot shower.

Some were giggling while others were near screaming and biting another's head off. It was typical. None of the girls could agree on anything but they could always banned together to act like Sisters once a week to go out to the clubs.

Scarlet was the oldest, and of course, the first to get ready. She always knew exactly what to wear to not look slutty but still look desirable, what makeup to apply to fit her clothes and not look like a trash-bag whore, how best to get her boobs to lift without them falling out of her bra or shirt and what to say to motivate the girls to work faster without making mistakes. It so wasn't fair.

Madison had been with the Coven for 2 years and she still wasn't experienced enough to go out to the clubs without making at least a dozen mistakes.

Lauren always helped. She was always the nicest. "You have the wrong top for that skirt" She put her hands on her hips and wiggled her nose thinking as she stood near stark naked in little more than her lacy, near see-through, boy shorts and push up bra. If she threw on a hat a tie and a whip to go with her black heels she might look like a naughty dominatrix. She always had such a serious look to her, but she was far from anything serious, always cracking jokes and goofing off.

"You need some lace and silk to go with those jeans and some tape instead of a bra to bring out the girls" she grinned and turned to their shared closet humming to herself as she rifled through both racks trying to pick the right clothes.

Scarlet yelled from the downstairs "10 minutes girls and then I'm leaving without you!" she didn't ever scream it or raise her tone so much as sing it in a playful coo to get them all to move faster.

Jumping from her stool in front of her makeup desk, Madison slipped her feet into her heels and pulled the strings around ankles then criss-crossed them tying them up her calf.

Checking her back in the full length mirror to make sure her white skirt wasn't crooked; she grinned and lightly wiggled her butt. "Perfect bum lift"

Lauren made a disgusted sound and tossed Madison the perfect white blouse to go with her skirt. "Ooo, I like this one"

"Yeah well I like your ass, why couldn't I have a perfect shapely ass?" She then mumbled something as she went back into the closet to look for something for herself.

Madison put her hands on her hips and smiled wickedly behind Lauren's back, "Because I'm just that perfect."

"Oh, eat me why don't you!" she snipped from the closet.

Madison couldn't help but quip back. "I'd rather have cock thank you" and then violently blushed from having said it.

Lauren poked her head around the corner wide-eyed and jaw dropped and screamed in a laughing high pitch, "OH MY GOD!" The two of them then laughed hysterically before quickly pulling on their clothes when Scarlet yelled up the stairs again that she was leaving.

The whole ride in the van to the club Madison couldn't help but giggle, causing Lauren to giggle, causing the other girls to giggle just cause someone had giggled. They were all laughing by the time they got to The Rouge and nobody knew why… except for Madison and Lauren.

When they piled out onto the street they were greeted by provocative whistles from a crowd lined up to get in. Madison couldn't help but turn around and do a little jig wiggling her bum, going up and down before running into the club with Scarlet chasing after her swinging her purse.

It was the classic Saturday night. All the girls would get drunk. All or most would take a guy back to the house. And if not all the girls got a guy, they'd share. They had the power to do whatever they pleased, including sharing men.

They didn't need to worry about diseases or getting pregnant. They had magic to protect against that. They even had spells to lure men to them, not that they needed them. But they could charm-lust a man into stripping naked and running down the street with a gorilla mask on his face and a banana shoved up his ass if they so pleased.

The girls did their little dance walking into The Rouge, showcasing to the bouncers their dresses for the evening.

Scarlet, of course, did little if any dance. She merely did a small twirl and nodded to the boys. She was always so serious and keeping an eye out for them all. She was the one with the banana up her ass. She was never shaking lose and having fun.

Madison didn't care, so long as she got to have her fun at the end of the night. And it'd been a Long while since she had picked a guy to take to bed, and thinking of her comment earlier only made her a little hungrier for it. The only problem was that she could never find a guy she liked.

Deciding to let the men come to her, she started to dance her way to the floor. She squawked and stumbled back when Scarlet grabbed her by the back of her dress and lightly pulled her away. "What!?"

Scarlet gave her a slight look and then looked to the rest of the girls. "Ok girls, nobody gets separated or out of sight of the others, and everyone comes to me if they spot something fishy ok?"

Most of everyone frowned or gave Scarlet a funny look. She'd never given them a speech before or worried about them wandering off. They always went back to the Coven. Everyone knew the rules.

"Got it!?" She didn't snap but she did raise her voice.

All the girls jumped to attention nodding or saying "Yes" or "Uh-huh". They all got the idea.

As soon as Scarlet gave them her smile they all ran off as fast as they could in heels.

Madison ran straight for the dance floor with Lauren holding her hand.


	2. Chapter 2

Devlin and Benjamin watched from the catwalk floor above the bar as the girls scattered below. "Why do they party so much? Don't they know of our existence?"

Devlin grinned down upon the mass of writhing and gyrating bodies and loud ear-splitting music before turning to his brother. "Ben, they don't know we're here because of the runes sown into the cufflinks and hems of our clothing. They hide us from their sight. We could walk right past them and they'd never even know it."

Devlin turned and gripped Ben by the shoulders lightly squeezing, and wickedly grinning. "We could seduce every single last one of them, spawning a whole new generation of Wizards."

Ben frowned and lightly shrugged Devlin's hands off his trench coat and shoulders. "We're not supposed to interact with Witches brother… the last time our kind got involved with theirs there was a war lasting centuries. We near wiped each other out… and imagine what Council Master Lennon would say…" Ben shivered at the thought of the punishment he'd receive from the highest member of their order.

Shaking his head and chuckling Devlin waved off the thought. "Lennon can't do anything to us, not if we have the power of a whole coven behind us"

Ben couldn't imagine betraying their Council Master's wishes. "I… I don't think we -" looking past his brother council member to the stairs of the catwalk he couldn't help but feel a rush of blood through his veins.

The young woman that came up the steps was absolutely astonishing. She had dirty blonde curls and waves to her hair, full and vibrant jade green eyes, a thin and sensuous cat-like form accentuated by a firm chest that wasn't too overbearing or under-developed. She looked young, yet budding with vibrant life.

Side-stepping his brother he had to get closer. Moving through the light crowd atop the catwalk, He stopped at a high table where a couple sat conversing over drinks. He pardoned his presence and gently touched each of their hands. They looked to him quizzically for a moment and to his touch, and then shaking their heads they returned to talking to one another as though he had never approached.

He leaned in pretending to be a part of the conversation, and glanced out the corner of his eye from moment to moment.

Two other girls were with the blonde-haired beauty. He took little note of them, they were hardly of interest. Merely road blocks he needn't worry about.

What was he to say? He didn't want to charm her or lust her into his good graces. He wanted her to like him.

Devlin patted him on the back and said something that Ben lightly waved off "Yeah, go dance"

Turning his head back to the table as she turned to look in his general direction Ben slowly stirred the man's drink pretending it was his own, as the woman talked about their relationship and how she was thinking they were ready to move in together.

When he sensed that the young woman had turned back around to face the bar he slowly eyed his way back to her. Sighing he couldn't help but ask of the couple. "How do I talk to a girl that beautiful?"

Both of them turned to him and the girl lightly shrugged and gently rubbed his arm. "Just tell her you'd like to have a drink with her Ben. I'm sure she'll find you charming"

The man patted him on the shoulder. "Yeah sport, you're a cool guy, I'm sure she'll dig you"

He waved off the gestures. "You're just saying that cause I want you to, you can go back to your drinks." As if their conversation hadn't even been interrupted and Ben still didn't exist, they continued to talk and sip from their glasses.

Sighing he turned away from staring at her, from staring at the horrible temptation. He looked to the dance floor and quickly stood straight and wide-eyed. "Oh god"


	3. Chapter 3

Madison had a small gathering of men around her, wiggling her finger one would draw near, and pushing another away he would turn defeated to dance it up with someone else. She was taking her time, choosing from the hottest bodies and best dancers. She was also using a little magic to peek into their pants and see who had the biggest gift.

Biting her lip she swayed her hips and sometimes snapped them in rhythm with the music and whipped her hair around as she used her magic as a lust to make the boys hard. She wanted them hungry for her, showing their best.

It wasn't until a young man in a well tailored blue shirt and dress pants stepped onto the floor that she started feeling the hunger of her own.

He had dark eyes and hair and ruggedly handsome good looks. A bit of a scruff to his chin and cheek but nothing she couldn't make him shave off. Watching him slide and move his way across the dance floor she couldn't help but break from her circle of potential man slaves to meet him half way.

She turned her back to him and slowly ground her hips and ass against his crotch as soon as he was close enough. The feeling that pressed back against her was big enough for her hunger, and only made her all the more excited.

Grinning and biting her lip she tilted her head back resting it on his shoulder and nipped at his neck as she rubbed back harder against him.

His hands dared to roam across her hips to her stomach and slide down to between her legs before back up and over her chest. A little moan escaped her throat, but thankfully the blaring music muffled it from audibility.

Turning around she unbuttoned the front of his shirt and bit his lip sucking on it. "I want you" she mouthed the words to him as she pulled on his belt taking him back to the door.

Within moments they had a cab and his hands were all over her. His fingers slipped under her shirt and under her skirt. The need was driving her insane. She could feel his throbbing bulge in his pants and was more than glad to rub it and softly squeeze it as he sucked on her neck and squeezed her breast twisting her nipple. God he knew exactly what to do and how.

Arriving at their destination she couldn't take her lips or eyes off his or her hand off his crotch and belt, she wanted it so bad. They made their way up to the room and it wasn't until after he unlocked the door to an apartment suite that she realized that they had gone back to his place.

Not caring at all about the stupid rule she jumped him and let him carry her to the bed where he dropped her down and crawled on top of her grinding his hard crotch down into hers.

"Oh god, yes, fuck me hard" He gripped her wrists and pinned her hands above her head as he bit at her neck.

Leaning back he ran a finger down the front of her shirt scalding the material. Then gripping the front he ripped open her blouse and bit at her nipples.

Whining in her throat she pushed her head back into the pillows gripping the headboard. "Oh God"

He grabbed the front of her dress and quickly snapped the waistband and ripped it in half. Curling his fingers into her thong he roughly pulled them down then ripped open his shirt sending the buttons flying.

Rubbing her thighs together she bit her lip looking up at him. She was going to tease her hands down her breasts and stomach to play with her clit when she noticed they were mystically bound to the bed. Fuck it, she didn't care if he was a Wizard she wanted him so fucking bad.

He unzipped his pants and dropped his boxers pulling out a massive hard cock that made her eyes bulge. "Fuck yes! Give it to me!"

Getting down onto his hands and knees he eased down on top of her slapped her ass causing her to shriek slightly and feel a wave of his energy crawl up her spine firing an ecstasy into her she never knew before.

His rock hard cock and head pushed to her lips causing her to shiver with excitement "Do it"

Lunging he pushed up hard and fast into her, causing a slight moment of pain, but then nothing but orgasmic rushes of energy. He bit at her neck and ground down hard into her pussy as he gripped her shoulders squeezing tight digging his fingers in.

She wrapped her legs around him squeezing his sides tight and pushed her head back into the bed feeling a hard shiver up her spine and her pussy tightening with every thrust.

It was a war to keep from climaxing on his hard cock. Opening her eyes she groaned from the sight of the pictures on the side walls of the bedroom pulling towards each other.

She could hear the kettle whistling to a boil but she didn't remember seeing him set it on the stove, the bed was shaking and her legs were quivering.

Her sense of time and the apartment expanded as she reached a new plateau, a new sensation of lust. She could see the kettle screaming and dancing on the countertop, not even on the stove. The pictures in the bedroom ripped free from their hangings and embedded themselves into the opposite walls the bed was near thundering on all four posts and she was arching her back screaming as she pushed her head into the pillows.

The bulbs in the lamps burst and erupted with light from the core electricity alone. The lights hanging from the roof shattered, sending showers of sparks down upon them.

Gripping the bed sheets and pulling back into her self she bared down hard upon him squeezing her self around his shaft and then let loose a scream and came hard on him tensing and squeezing his cock tight.

The lid of the kettle burned red hot and then exploded sending shards of smoking fragments into the ceiling culminating and punctuating her orgasm.

Groaning in his throat Devlin opened his eyes to the young woman he had bedded to see hers staring back at him. The two of them were both spent and his apartment had been destroyed, but it had worked. He had seeded her. Green runes danced around the rims of her green eyes for a moment before vanishing. She brushed the back of her hand against his cheek as he had released her from her bonds "What is your wish my master"


	4. Chapter 4

Savanna, the youngest of the sisters of the coven, blushed violently as she stepped past the large group of men that were crowded by the back exit. She needed some air because it was way too hot in the club. No wonder why they called it The Rouge, everyone was red from all the heat.

The bouncer looked her up and down, tilted his head slightly and frowned. "You look a little young to be getting in here in the first place."

Savanna lightly shrugged and pointed to Scarlet, who was sitting at the bar talking with the barkeep. "I'm with the sisters" she then did a little twirl to show off her baby blue, one-piece, strapless dress.

The bouncer smiled and nodded his head to her. "Well it's a very lovely dress Ms…?"

She lightly shrugged and smiled "Just call me Savanna"

He nodded and then pushed open the back door for her. "Alright Savanna, just give me a shout if the smoker's get to rowdy outside there for you."

Lightly shaking her head of blonde hair she stepped outside into the cooler night air "They won't be any trouble."

As soon as the door closed behind her she was pretty much swarmed by guys. Raising her hands she put them out as a stop. All the men froze on the spot. More than half of them had half-cocked grins on their faces. Slipping around one guy she couldn't help but notice a bulge in his pants and slight wet spot. "Ewww…"

She shivered and cringed as she crept away from the group and towards more open air. As soon as she was a safe distance she used a little touch of magic to make herself less noticeable, to blend in more with the shadows.

"A little dangerous to use that much magic in public isn't it?"

Savanna jumped and shrieked breaking the spell she had set on the men. They all stumbled towards each other and then awkwardly walked away from one another back to their drinks and smokes.

A man in a trench coat emerged from the shadows, almost completely concealed by the darkness of a simple fence. "Oh my god" Savanna whispered it under her breath. She knew it to be wrong to deal with Wizards, but to have one approach her was beyond frightening. She had heard the tales from Scarlet of the wars long past.

The Wizard's were brutal uncaring monsters that took what they wanted when they wanted it, power hungry and greedy was all they were.

"Stay away from me" She slowly backed away with her finger pointed at him.

He quickly raised his hands in show of no harm. "I don't want to fight. I just want to talk."

Savanna couldn't help but nervously laugh. "Yeah and probably cast a spell"

Shaking his head the man stepped forward into the light. He was wearing dark dress pants a light shirt and sports jacket with a beige trench coat. His hair was messy and his frame was thin, nothing more than a young man. "If I wanted to hurt you I could have done so a hundred times by now… if I wanted to trick you I could have spelled you just as easily." It was then that she realized she had seen him in the club. He had been watching her when she was on the catwalk with Jessica and Stephanie.

Lowering her finger Savanna stopped stepping back when she realized she was only a few dozen feet from the back door and the bouncer, not to mention in full view of the smokers. "Why should I trust you?" her voice most of been too loud, for some of the smokers started coming to her rescue.

"Hey homes what's up man?"

"Yeah why you picking on the girl?"

"Leave her alone or we'll fuck you up?"

Savanna looked from them to him, only to see him pull a wallet from his coat pocket and flash nothing but a charmed image of a badge.

"Whoa… hey man… no problem"

"Yeah we don't need no problems"

As quickly as the smokers came to her rescue, they backed off. The man frowned and sighed, "Look, you can label me how you want, but you have to warn your sisters. My brother is trying to seduce one of your Coven if he hasn't already. I've searched the entire club and I can't find him. I saw him heading onto the dance floor and then he vanished."

He rubbed his face as if exhausted and then looked back to her with his shoulders hanging. "You can hate me for being a Wizard. You can take me to your sisters and have me tortured to discover that all I've told you is true. All I know is that doing the right thing will be the only thing to give me some sort of solace tonight. Because knowing now that you're a Witch and that I can't ever tell you how beautiful I think you are, is more than enough torture and pain I wish to bare tonight."

Taken aback by his words, she couldn't help but feel a slight pain in her heart for him. He was kind of cute, and he was being honest from what she could tell. But what if it was a trap?

"You think I'm beautiful?"

Nodding and slightly shrugging he sighed heavily and folded one arm under the other rubbing his face.

Remembering a spell Scarlet had taught her, Savanna turned to the small green bush to their right, just beyond the light and the fence, and used a light breeze to catch a leaf from it.

The leaf tumbled and twisted through the air to her hand, and then taking a small drop of water from an almost empty tossed water bottle, she dropped it on the leaf and drawing her finger in a circle around the rim of the leaf she chanted softly.

When the leave seemed to shiver to life and shutter small green bits of luminescent dust, she then stepped to the strange Wizard and held out her had. "I need your blood"

Frowning at her hand and then looking to his, he took his finger and touched it to his palm. He flinched and a few drops of blood fell from his hand onto the leaf.

She didn't know what magic Wizard's had, but it was clearly dangerous if all he needed was a fingertip to draw blood. Bringing the leaf back to herself, she cupped it and hid it from sight. "Now… is it true… all that you said?"

He nodded.

She shook her head. "I need to hear you say it."

"Yes"

Closing her eyes, she then opened her hands and looked down to see the leaf had livened to a bright violet… it was all true… he thought she was beautiful. The thought touched her heart and put a soft smile on her lips. Then the grim nature of the situation hit her, and that was when she realized… her sisters were in danger.


	5. Chapter 5

Savanna looked to Scarlet and sheepishly smiled as she closed the door behind her stepping back into the club. "He gave you a penny?"

Savanna soon feared she had done something wrong, and slowly nodded. "Yeah… he said it was his 'lucky' penny and it got him lucky with girls so he gave it to me…"

Scarlet gave her a slight scowl and then grabbed her wrist and put her hand to Savanna's. Closing her eyes Scarlet began probing Savanna's whole body, even the unmentionable areas, causing a slight flutter in her heart and a horrible awkward blush. She was afraid to ask what Scarlet was doing or why.

After a few more moments of probing and poking and prodding, Scarlet finally opened her eyes and nodded, "You're clean, sweetheart. He thankfully didn't do anything to you."

Savanna bit her lip slightly raising an eyebrow, unsure of how to feel. Pleased? Relieved? What was she to say? 'Thank you?'

Scarlet gave her a soft smile and gently brushed her cheek, "Go with the other girls, you're safe."

Feeling more than just comforted by the words, Savanna hurried to the doors where the others waited. Jessica and Stephanie were waiting for her. They were younger girls, like her. But they had been with the Covenant for longer than she had. Savanna had little more than a few months of training under her belt. Before that she only dabbled in simple magic, like making a feather float.

They quickly wrapped their arms with hers and walked with her out to the van. Of course, there were photographers taking pictures at such a god awful late hour in the night.

They'd undoubtedly be in the local colleges paper as the photographers were, again, undoubtedly college students.

Savanna climbed in after Jessica and rested her purse on her lap waiting for Stephanie. She waited, and waited, and eventually poked her head out to see what was wrong. "Steph?"

"Get back inside." The usually calm and cool young woman was scowling and looked ready to rip the head off a bulldog.

Madison climbed into the fan a moment later with a slightly torn shirt and skirt. She sat down next to Savanna and grinned. She had obviously had her fun with someone.

Stephanie got in after Madison into the seat in front of them and closed the van door before barking at the driver.

The ride back to the covenant was long and silent. Madison was the only one that seemed chipper. She had a grin on her face the whole way home. Then again why wouldn't she? She was the only one to get anything out of the whole experience except for a frightful scare.

Savanna had nearly screamed when she saw the Wizard leap over the side only to grab the railing. He was quite acrobatic… and strong. The thought alone made her smile slightly causing Madison to nudge her. "You saw a hot boy?"

Turning away she violently blushed at the thought of saying anything, and the smile was quickly choked off by fear. What if someone realized she was thinking about the Wizard?

"Oh c'mon Savanna, tell us what le looked like?" She nudged again, almost greedily demanding the details, leaning in too close.

Savanna was more than happy when the Van came to a stop and it was time to pile out because she was then able to escape their prying eyes and questions.

Madison, however, didn't want to let Savanna leave. She turned to face her and blocked the exit, cornering both her and Jessica. "You have to tell me or I won't let you out"

The dread and worry that she'd be caught began to boil up inside of her. She could tell that the blood was draining from her face. Her legs began shivering alongside her spine. Madison had mystical knowledge beyond that of Savanna and would more than likely get the knowledge she wanted simply by forcing her to talk.

She had no idea as to what punishment they would give her for even so much as speaking with a Wizard, let alone working with one.

Shaking her head vigorously, Savanna bit her bottom lip leaning away as Madison leaned in, grinning with wide eyes.

She got close enough for Savanna to almost see the magic in her eyes, to see the runes dancing.

"MADISON!" the invasive probing of those eyes was sharply terminated as Madison turned frowning.

Scarlet was standing outside the van glaring in Madison with arms crossed beneath her chest. She was not leaning onto one foot tapping the other, she didn't have her hands on her hips with an eyebrow raised. She was standing, with her eyes set and her breath, steady heavy and slow. She looked like a mad bull ready to barrel into the van after the elder sister.

"Get inside!" Scarlet barked it with such force and so spontaneously, that everyone inside the van jumped. Everyone jumped, except for Madison.

The elder sister glanced back to Savanna before scowling slightly and turning back to the door to crawl out and flip her hair at Scarlet before heading into the house.

Scarlet was near stepping on Madison's heals the whole way to the front door.

Savanna just had enough time to peer out the side of the van to see the front double doors slam shut and the screaming to commence. And when Scarlet screamed, it wasn't something to be taken lightly.

"What happened?"

Stephanie gave Savanna a helping hand out of the van as she still wasn't used to climbing in and out of the thing in a dress. "Madison broke a house rule."

An unfamiliar chill ran up her spine at that moment. Something told her that Madison may have tangled with a Wizard… but then why would she be grinning? "Which one?"

"None of your business Savanna. Go in through the kitchens and straight to bed with you." Stephanie made her orders clear, but she hardly snapped them.

Savanna nodded and hooked her purse on her elbow and then took Jessica's offered hand and walked to the side entrance with her older sister as an escort.

The side entrance had a small walkway that the chef's and delivery drivers used. The head chef, Maurice, was already up with his morning coffee and slowly sipping from the steaming cup. He was leaning back against the wall with his freshly cleaned white apron tied to his massive barrel chest and beer gut.

He was not a fat man, and neither did he wear the weight on his face. He had a strong massive jaw and finely trimmed and thin goatee lining his lips and chin. His black hair was peppered with strands of silver or grey as he was slowly advancing in age.

Upon noticing the two girls walking towards the kitchens, Maurice swallowed what coffee he had been sipping, stood a little straighter and shook off what he could of the morning haze that affected all at such an early hour. Clearing his throat, and quite loudly, he lightly bowed his head closing his eyes. "Ladies"

Turning to the kitchen doors he gripped the small knob with his massive meaty hand and twisted the jammed door with one attempt, of which it would usually take a normal sized man several attempts, and then opened the door for them to head inside.

"Thank you, Maurice."

Savanna thanked him in turn, "Thank you most kindly, Maurice."

Maurice gave Savanna a soft smile that he never gave any of the other girls.

He was very loving and fatherly, but hardly as much to the other girls as he was to Savanna. Her very first day at the house, she had been so frightened and nervous that she had lain awake for most of the night until she decided it best to get a breath of fresh air. She had yet to go through initiation or get all of her orientation completed and had to begin showcasing her pathetic skills in front of a house full of girls that were well beyond her in skill and technique. It was hard enough to keep her heart steady and calm, let alone sleep.

Sure enough, as Savanna made her way down the stairs and through the kitchen to the gardens, Maurice had been waiting for her. He had been waiting with a warm cup of chocolate. It was also her favorite kind. How the man had found out she loved hot dark chocolate was still a mystery to her, but she had spent the entire night, sitting and chatting with him. He had listened and comforted her and even told her stories as to when he was a young apprentice in the kitchens and Scarlet was the inexperienced new girl.

The old man had calmed and eased her nerves enough for her to sleep, and by the time morning had arrived, she had fallen asleep, curled up on the bench they had been sitting upon with a warm blanket and pillow he had brought with him.

Of course, Maurice didn't give as much time to her as he used to. He would sit up at night with her in the gardens and chat with her whenever she had an issue to resolve, and it always seemed as if he was always awake when she was worried. It was as if he knew when she needed his help.

Unfortunately, she wasn't sure if she could trust him that night. For betraying the secret of having spoken with a Wizard, to even working in conjunction with one was considered a high crime in the Witching community.

Jessica led Savanna through the dark, bleach-reeking kitchen on the way through to the second stairs leading to the dorms.

Even after only passing through the heavy double doors into the breakfast nook, which was at the very back of the house next to the gardens, they could hear Scarlet screaming at Madison. The words were far too muffled to understand what was being said, but they could tell that it wasn't pleasant.

Jessica hurried Savanna past the long table to the stairs and up the two rounded flights to the dorms. Most of the girls' doors were closed and some had clothing sticking out from under them.

Typically, the sisters were messy. "Come on now, we can't be late for bed or Scarlet will have all our heads."

Savanna lifted her feet one at a time and slipped off her low heels so that she could tiptoe down the rug hallway to her room.

Jessica split off when she got to her door and then waved Savanna on to her own. Savanna hardly had any reason to act like a sloth or take her time.

Opening her dorm room door she slipped inside and closed it behind her, leaving her in the silence and quiet of her thoughts. Those, however, were hardly comforting. The covenant was in trouble. A Wizard was trying to corrupt them from the inside, and Scarlet was on the rampage. How was she to save her sisters when she couldn't even save or believe her self?

Sighing and sliding down the door to the floor, Savanna pulled her knees to her chest and rested her forehead to her knees. She wasn't strong enough or smart enough to handle it all on her own. Even the Wizard seemed uncertain of himself. What were they to do?

"Sleep", that was what her father always told her, she had to allow herself to sleep and dream. "Dreams are where the mind solves the problems our waking minds cannot work to a solution."

Groaning and pushing to her feet she shuffled over to her closet and unzipped her dress tossing her shoes into her closet. Dropping her skirt, bra, and panties to the floor she then grabbed her night gown from her dresser and slipped it on and pulled her hair out from the collar.

Sleeping into her warm bed, the dark warmth of sleep soon became an inviting friend to her. Tense muscles relaxed to the point of dead weight and her eyelids began to draw closed.

No sooner had she closed her eyes, did she snap them open. She could have sworn she had heard something, possibly even her name being called.

Slipping from her bed and sliding on her slippers she shuffled to her bedroom door and opened it a crack to peer out. Nothing, all the doors were closed, including Madison's. She must have silently crept back up to her room. Turning back she saw from her night stand clock that it had been an hour since she had slipped into bed. Apparently Madison had gone back up to her room a while ago.

A light tapping at her window then caught her ear. It was near inaudible, but the slightest scratch was what grabbed her attention, and made her realized that the tapping existed.

Shuffling to the window and hugging her arms to her chest slightly shivering, she was surprised to find a small green cricket tapping it's leg against the glass on the outside.

Frowning, she touched her fingers to the window frame, teased a small amount of her magic into the wood paneling, and then gently lifted the window just enough to fit her hand under and flick the cricket away.

"No Wai-" before she could stop herself, she had flicked the tiny voiced cricket off the window sill, causing it to scream as it fell down into the bushes below. "AIEEEEEEEE!"

Covering her mouth in sheer shock to have even met a cricket that could talk, let alone scream, she quickly hurried to her dorm room door, peered outside, and then rushed down the hallway hoping nobody would hear her moving about.

Heading down the secondary steps into the breakfast nook, she was very quiet and very careful as to not cause the window pane door to creek on its hinges as she made her way out into the gardens.

Pausing, she peered around the tall bushes to see if Maurice was sitting on his bench, as per his usual precognitive appearances. Thankfully, he wasn't there.

Tiptoeing across the dew cold grass, Savanna got down onto her hands and knees near the bottom of the bushes by her window and began searching for the small bug. "Cricket?" she whispered as she tried to peer through the tangle of branches, dead leaves, and shrubbery. "Cricket, where are you?"

A tiny, high-pitched moan escaped near the top within the leaves. Getting up onto her knees, Savanna gently pushed aside the branches to find a small green cricket lying on its back with its many appendages twitching in the air and it's antennas off askew. "I think I bruised my mandibles" the voice sounded like that of a small man on helium, it was adorably high and tiny.

"Awe, you poor thing."

"Poor?" The small cricket groaned as it frantically thrashed its legs in the air before correcting itself. It then shook its head and flicked it's antennas to right. "I am not Poor!" The small bug slowly stood taller as if trying to puff out a chest it didn't have. "I am a Wizard!"

Near shrieking from fright, Savanna slapped her hands over the leaf, catching the small insect, and quickly silencing it. She could hear his muffled screaming and wild frantic jumping; tickling her hands in the process "let me out!"

He creaked and chirped as a cricket would and bounced against her hands tickling her, almost causing her to giggle.

Quickly hurrying back to the gardens and the breakfast nook doors, she ground to a halt as soon as she rounded the corner. Scarlet was standing with her hands on her hips and foot lightly tapping.

"What are you doing?"

Savanna paled at the sight of the older sister. How was she going to explain herself? How could she explain flicking a cricket/Wizard off her window sill and then running out to rescue him from her bushes? "I…"

"Well! Out with it!"

A small crowd was forming inside the nook and was looking out the windows to the small conflict taking place just outside. "I…"

"What is in your hands!?"

Before Savanna could have the chance to open them to show the leaping cricket, her hands were violently thrown apart and the cricket was launched from her hands.

Your browser may not support display of this image.

The magic that surrounded him in the darkness of the young Witches' hands was bright and powerful. It was amazing what a cricket could see. He was able to see in all forms of light, including the high infrared's and low lights.

The moment her hands opened, Ben jumped free from his confines, only to be blasted free from the release of magic. The extra momentum launched him through the air and into the brightness of the open light. His collision was with something wiry, but soft. The material was familiar.

Shaking his head and correcting his antennas from the wind-sweeping speed, Ben had the chance to focus his vision, and then freeze stiff.

He was on a woman's blouse… staring at her breasts. Slowly changing the focus of his eyes… he soon found himself to be staring up at the very woman that had let him go from the club the night before.

She was probably about as wide-eyed as he felt at that moment. Her face was paled, and she looked like she was ready to squash him.

"NO don't kill him!"

His antennas warned him of the rapid change in air pressure long before the hand got to her chest, and where he once had clung. Coiling up his legs he fire and released from her chest, jumping far from her, and missing her hand by scant inches. Thankfully, those scant inches, were near miles to a cricket of his size.

Landing in the long grass, Ben began a rapid and repetitive coil-and-release retreat of leaping towards the hedges in the gardens.

Mumbling under his small breath he couldn't help but comment to himself. "Thank god I didn't go as a mouse or I'd surely be broom fodder"

Landing in the shadowing safety of a bush, Ben hopped on the spot to turn and face the giant humans as they yelled at one another.

He couldn't quite make out their booming voices from the distance he sat at. Had he been in Human form he would have heard the conversation clear as a bell, but his sense of hearing was refined to the higher pitch to take the low rumble of the human throat. It was strange how he saw things so differently through a bug's eyes. It was only after transferring his consciousness into the form of a cricket that he started to finally understand how hard it was to be a bug and why Master Black enjoyed talking about wolves so much.

Unlike a wolf, a bug was a great deal smaller than a human, making the ordinary living world seem all that much larger. He couldn't just take one step and cover the lawn in a few strides. He had to leap several times in order to cover the same distance as a Cricket; making him thank the luck he found such a leaping marvel.

The young blonde girl was hanging her head slightly and nodding as the older, red-haired woman slowly approached and put her hand on the young blonde girls shoulder.

It was then that he realized that he needed to start getting names. Names would help him in the long run when explaining everything back to Council Master Lennon. It would be his first order of business once he got back to the girl.

As soon as they started heading for the door he began pouncing through the grass, spring-loading his legs and firing as fast as he could. He needed to get up the steps to the patio and through the doors before they closed.

He began springing his way across the stone pattern-work towards the glass doors and then dove through just as it was sliding closed. Skidding across the polished wooden floor he skidded to a halt and then hopped over to hide behind the table leg resting his own.

Watching the giants as they thundered through the room towards the rug stairs, both barefoot and comfy in slippers, one turned to the room and spoke in a higher tone that he was just barely able to catch.

"Did you hear that?"

His legs twitched, and it was only just then that he realized he was chirping.

Sitting slightly straighter he forced his legs to halt. It was reflex for a cricket to chirp in varying temperatures. It was something he'd have to watch out for. He didn't want to give away the fact that he had gotten into the house.

The red-haired woman turned back to the steps and slowly made her way up, pausing only to look back into the – what he could only guess to be – kitchen one last time before disappearing around the corner.

Ben eased his way around the table leg to look up to the girl. She too, was looking around the kitchen trying to find him. But she wasn't moving about the room, merely seeing if she could spot him from where she stood.

Hopping across the floor he leapt up and clung to her night gown as she turned to the stairs and started heading her way up.


	6. Chapter 6

Savanna looked to Scarlet and sheepishly smiled as she closed the door behind her stepping back into the club. "He gave you a penny?"

Savanna soon feared she had done something wrong, and slowly nodded. "Yeah… he said it was his 'lucky' penny and it got him lucky with girls so he gave it to me…"

Scarlet gave her a slight scowl and then grabbed her wrist and put her hand to Savanna's. Closing her eyes Scarlet began probing Savanna's whole body, even the unmentionable areas, causing a slight flutter in her heart and a horrible awkward blush. She was afraid to ask what Scarlet was doing or why.

After a few more moments of probing and poking and prodding, Scarlet finally opened her eyes and nodded, "You're clean, sweetheart. He thankfully didn't do anything to you."

Savanna bit her lip slightly raising an eyebrow, unsure of how to feel. Pleased? Relieved? What was she to say? 'Thank you?'

Scarlet gave her a soft smile and gently brushed her cheek, "Go with the other girls, you're safe."

Feeling more than just comforted by the words, Savanna hurried to the doors where the others waited. Jessica and Stephanie were waiting for her. They were younger girls, like her. But they had been with the Covenant for longer than she had. Savanna had little more than a few months of training under her belt. Before that she only dabbled in simple magic, like making a feather float.

They quickly wrapped their arms with hers and walked with her out to the van. Of course, there were photographers taking pictures at such a god awful late hour in the night.

They'd undoubtedly be in the local colleges paper as the photographers were, again, undoubtedly college students.

Savanna climbed in after Jessica and rested her purse on her lap waiting for Stephanie. She waited, and waited, and eventually poked her head out to see what was wrong. "Steph?"

"Get back inside." The usually calm and cool young woman was scowling and looked ready to rip the head off a bulldog.

Madison climbed into the fan a moment later with a slightly torn shirt and skirt. She sat down next to Savanna and grinned. She had obviously had her fun with someone.

Stephanie got in after Madison into the seat in front of them and closed the van door before barking at the driver.

The ride back to the covenant was long and silent. Madison was the only one that seemed chipper. She had a grin on her face the whole way home. Then again why wouldn't she? She was the only one to get anything out of the whole experience except for a frightful scare.

Savanna had nearly screamed when she saw the Wizard leap over the side only to grab the railing. He was quite acrobatic… and strong. The thought alone made her smile slightly causing Madison to nudge her. "You saw a hot boy?"

Turning away she violently blushed at the thought of saying anything, and the smile was quickly choked off by fear. What if someone realized she was thinking about the Wizard?

"Oh c'mon Savanna, tell us what le looked like?" She nudged again, almost greedily demanding the details, leaning in too close.

Savanna was more than happy when the Van came to a stop and it was time to pile out because she was then able to escape their prying eyes and questions.

Madison, however, didn't want to let Savanna leave. She turned to face her and blocked the exit, cornering both her and Jessica. "You have to tell me or I won't let you out"

The dread and worry that she'd be caught began to boil up inside of her. She could tell that the blood was draining from her face. Her legs began shivering alongside her spine. Madison had mystical knowledge beyond that of Savanna and would more than likely get the knowledge she wanted simply by forcing her to talk.

She had no idea as to what punishment they would give her for even so much as speaking with a Wizard, let alone working with one.

Shaking her head vigorously, Savanna bit her bottom lip leaning away as Madison leaned in, grinning with wide eyes.

She got close enough for Savanna to almost see the magic in her eyes, to see the runes dancing.

"MADISON!" the invasive probing of those eyes was sharply terminated as Madison turned frowning.

Scarlet was standing outside the van glaring in Madison with arms crossed beneath her chest. She was not leaning onto one foot tapping the other, she didn't have her hands on her hips with an eyebrow raised. She was standing, with her eyes set and her breath, steady heavy and slow. She looked like a mad bull ready to barrel into the van after the elder sister.

"Get inside!" Scarlet barked it with such force and so spontaneously, that everyone inside the van jumped. Everyone jumped, except for Madison.

The elder sister glanced back to Savanna before scowling slightly and turning back to the door to crawl out and flip her hair at Scarlet before heading into the house.

Scarlet was near stepping on Madison's heals the whole way to the front door.

Savanna just had enough time to peer out the side of the van to see the front double doors slam shut and the screaming to commence. And when Scarlet screamed, it wasn't something to be taken lightly.

"What happened?"

Stephanie gave Savanna a helping hand out of the van as she still wasn't used to climbing in and out of the thing in a dress. "Madison broke a house rule."

An unfamiliar chill ran up her spine at that moment. Something told her that Madison may have tangled with a Wizard… but then why would she be grinning? "Which one?"

"None of your business Savanna. Go in through the kitchens and straight to bed with you." Stephanie made her orders clear, but she hardly snapped them.

Savanna nodded and hooked her purse on her elbow and then took Jessica's offered hand and walked to the side entrance with her older sister as an escort.

The side entrance had a small walkway that the chef's and delivery drivers used. The head chef, Maurice, was already up with his morning coffee and slowly sipping from the steaming cup. He was leaning back against the wall with his freshly cleaned white apron tied to his massive barrel chest and beer gut.

He was not a fat man, and neither did he wear the weight on his face. He had a strong massive jaw and finely trimmed and thin goatee lining his lips and chin. His black hair was peppered with strands of silver or grey as he was slowly advancing in age.

Upon noticing the two girls walking towards the kitchens, Maurice swallowed what coffee he had been sipping, stood a little straighter and shook off what he could of the morning haze that affected all at such an early hour. Clearing his throat, and quite loudly, he lightly bowed his head closing his eyes. "Ladies"

Turning to the kitchen doors he gripped the small knob with his massive meaty hand and twisted the jammed door with one attempt, of which it would usually take a normal sized man several attempts, and then opened the door for them to head inside.

"Thank you, Maurice."

Savanna thanked him in turn, "Thank you most kindly, Maurice."

Maurice gave Savanna a soft smile that he never gave any of the other girls.

He was very loving and fatherly, but hardly as much to the other girls as he was to Savanna. Her very first day at the house, she had been so frightened and nervous that she had lain awake for most of the night until she decided it best to get a breath of fresh air. She had yet to go through initiation or get all of her orientation completed and had to begin showcasing her pathetic skills in front of a house full of girls that were well beyond her in skill and technique. It was hard enough to keep her heart steady and calm, let alone sleep.

Sure enough, as Savanna made her way down the stairs and through the kitchen to the gardens, Maurice had been waiting for her. He had been waiting with a warm cup of chocolate. It was also her favorite kind. How the man had found out she loved hot dark chocolate was still a mystery to her, but she had spent the entire night, sitting and chatting with him. He had listened and comforted her and even told her stories as to when he was a young apprentice in the kitchens and Scarlet was the inexperienced new girl.

The old man had calmed and eased her nerves enough for her to sleep, and by the time morning had arrived, she had fallen asleep, curled up on the bench they had been sitting upon with a warm blanket and pillow he had brought with him.

Of course, Maurice didn't give as much time to her as he used to. He would sit up at night with her in the gardens and chat with her whenever she had an issue to resolve, and it always seemed as if he was always awake when she was worried. It was as if he knew when she needed his help.

Unfortunately, she wasn't sure if she could trust him that night. For betraying the secret of having spoken with a Wizard, to even working in conjunction with one was considered a high crime in the Witching community.

Jessica led Savanna through the dark, bleach-reeking kitchen on the way through to the second stairs leading to the dorms.

Even after only passing through the heavy double doors into the breakfast nook, which was at the very back of the house next to the gardens, they could hear Scarlet screaming at Madison. The words were far too muffled to understand what was being said, but they could tell that it wasn't pleasant.

Jessica hurried Savanna past the long table to the stairs and up the two rounded flights to the dorms. Most of the girls' doors were closed and some had clothing sticking out from under them.

Typically, the sisters were messy. "Come on now, we can't be late for bed or Scarlet will have all our heads."

Savanna lifted her feet one at a time and slipped off her low heels so that she could tiptoe down the rug hallway to her room.

Jessica split off when she got to her door and then waved Savanna on to her own. Savanna hardly had any reason to act like a sloth or take her time.

Opening her dorm room door she slipped inside and closed it behind her, leaving her in the silence and quiet of her thoughts. Those, however, were hardly comforting. The covenant was in trouble. A Wizard was trying to corrupt them from the inside, and Scarlet was on the rampage. How was she to save her sisters when she couldn't even save or believe her self?

Sighing and sliding down the door to the floor, Savanna pulled her knees to her chest and rested her forehead to her knees. She wasn't strong enough or smart enough to handle it all on her own. Even the Wizard seemed uncertain of himself. What were they to do?

"Sleep", that was what her father always told her, she had to allow herself to sleep and dream. "Dreams are where the mind solves the problems our waking minds cannot work to a solution."

Groaning and pushing to her feet she shuffled over to her closet and unzipped her dress tossing her shoes into her closet. Dropping her skirt, bra, and panties to the floor she then grabbed her night gown from her dresser and slipped it on and pulled her hair out from the collar.

Sleeping into her warm bed, the dark warmth of sleep soon became an inviting friend to her. Tense muscles relaxed to the point of dead weight and her eyelids began to draw closed.

No sooner had she closed her eyes, did she snap them open. She could have sworn she had heard something, possibly even her name being called.

Slipping from her bed and sliding on her slippers she shuffled to her bedroom door and opened it a crack to peer out. Nothing, all the doors were closed, including Madison's. She must have silently crept back up to her room. Turning back she saw from her night stand clock that it had been an hour since she had slipped into bed. Apparently Madison had gone back up to her room a while ago.

A light tapping at her window then caught her ear. It was near inaudible, but the slightest scratch was what grabbed her attention, and made her realized that the tapping existed.

Shuffling to the window and hugging her arms to her chest slightly shivering, she was surprised to find a small green cricket tapping it's leg against the glass on the outside.

Frowning, she touched her fingers to the window frame, teased a small amount of her magic into the wood paneling, and then gently lifted the window just enough to fit her hand under and flick the cricket away.

"No Wai-" before she could stop herself, she had flicked the tiny voiced cricket off the window sill, causing it to scream as it fell down into the bushes below. "AIEEEEEEEE!"

Covering her mouth in sheer shock to have even met a cricket that could talk, let alone scream, she quickly hurried to her dorm room door, peered outside, and then rushed down the hallway hoping nobody would hear her moving about.

Heading down the secondary steps into the breakfast nook, she was very quiet and very careful as to not cause the window pane door to creek on its hinges as she made her way out into the gardens.

Pausing, she peered around the tall bushes to see if Maurice was sitting on his bench, as per his usual precognitive appearances. Thankfully, he wasn't there.

Tiptoeing across the dew cold grass, Savanna got down onto her hands and knees near the bottom of the bushes by her window and began searching for the small bug. "Cricket?" she whispered as she tried to peer through the tangle of branches, dead leaves, and shrubbery. "Cricket, where are you?"

A tiny, high-pitched moan escaped near the top within the leaves. Getting up onto her knees, Savanna gently pushed aside the branches to find a small green cricket lying on its back with its many appendages twitching in the air and it's antennas off askew. "I think I bruised my mandibles" the voice sounded like that of a small man on helium, it was adorably high and tiny.

"Awe, you poor thing."

"Poor?" The small cricket groaned as it frantically thrashed its legs in the air before correcting itself. It then shook its head and flicked it's antennas to right. "I am not Poor!" The small bug slowly stood taller as if trying to puff out a chest it didn't have. "I am a Wizard!"

Near shrieking from fright, Savanna slapped her hands over the leaf, catching the small insect, and quickly silencing it. She could hear his muffled screaming and wild frantic jumping; tickling her hands in the process "let me out!"

He creaked and chirped as a cricket would and bounced against her hands tickling her, almost causing her to giggle.

Quickly hurrying back to the gardens and the breakfast nook doors, she ground to a halt as soon as she rounded the corner. Scarlet was standing with her hands on her hips and foot lightly tapping.

"What are you doing?"

Savanna paled at the sight of the older sister. How was she going to explain herself? How could she explain flicking a cricket/Wizard off her window sill and then running out to rescue him from her bushes? "I…"

"Well! Out with it!"

A small crowd was forming inside the nook and was looking out the windows to the small conflict taking place just outside. "I…"

"What is in your hands!?"

Before Savanna could have the chance to open them to show the leaping cricket, her hands were violently thrown apart and the cricket was launched from her hands.

Your browser may not support display of this image.

The magic that surrounded him in the darkness of the young Witches' hands was bright and powerful. It was amazing what a cricket could see. He was able to see in all forms of light, including the high infrared's and low lights.

The moment her hands opened, Ben jumped free from his confines, only to be blasted free from the release of magic. The extra momentum launched him through the air and into the brightness of the open light. His collision was with something wiry, but soft. The material was familiar.

Shaking his head and correcting his antennas from the wind-sweeping speed, Ben had the chance to focus his vision, and then freeze stiff.

He was on a woman's blouse… staring at her breasts. Slowly changing the focus of his eyes… he soon found himself to be staring up at the very woman that had let him go from the club the night before.

She was probably about as wide-eyed as he felt at that moment. Her face was paled, and she looked like she was ready to squash him.

"NO don't kill him!"

His antennas warned him of the rapid change in air pressure long before the hand got to her chest, and where he once had clung. Coiling up his legs he fire and released from her chest, jumping far from her, and missing her hand by scant inches. Thankfully, those scant inches, were near miles to a cricket of his size.

Landing in the long grass, Ben began a rapid and repetitive coil-and-release retreat of leaping towards the hedges in the gardens.

Mumbling under his small breath he couldn't help but comment to himself. "Thank god I didn't go as a mouse or I'd surely be broom fodder"

Landing in the shadowing safety of a bush, Ben hopped on the spot to turn and face the giant humans as they yelled at one another.

He couldn't quite make out their booming voices from the distance he sat at. Had he been in Human form he would have heard the conversation clear as a bell, but his sense of hearing was refined to the higher pitch to take the low rumble of the human throat. It was strange how he saw things so differently through a bug's eyes. It was only after transferring his consciousness into the form of a cricket that he started to finally understand how hard it was to be a bug and why Master Black enjoyed talking about wolves so much.

Unlike a wolf, a bug was a great deal smaller than a human, making the ordinary living world seem all that much larger. He couldn't just take one step and cover the lawn in a few strides. He had to leap several times in order to cover the same distance as a Cricket; making him thank the luck he found such a leaping marvel.

The young blonde girl was hanging her head slightly and nodding as the older, red-haired woman slowly approached and put her hand on the young blonde girls shoulder.

It was then that he realized that he needed to start getting names. Names would help him in the long run when explaining everything back to Council Master Lennon. It would be his first order of business once he got back to the girl.

As soon as they started heading for the door he began pouncing through the grass, spring-loading his legs and firing as fast as he could. He needed to get up the steps to the patio and through the doors before they closed.

He began springing his way across the stone pattern-work towards the glass doors and then dove through just as it was sliding closed. Skidding across the polished wooden floor he skidded to a halt and then hopped over to hide behind the table leg resting his own.

Watching the giants as they thundered through the room towards the rug stairs, both barefoot and comfy in slippers, one turned to the room and spoke in a higher tone that he was just barely able to catch.

"Did you hear that?"

His legs twitched, and it was only just then that he realized he was chirping.

Sitting slightly straighter he forced his legs to halt. It was reflex for a cricket to chirp in varying temperatures. It was something he'd have to watch out for. He didn't want to give away the fact that he had gotten into the house.

The red-haired woman turned back to the steps and slowly made her way up, pausing only to look back into the – what he could only guess to be – kitchen one last time before disappearing around the corner.

Ben eased his way around the table leg to look up to the girl. She too, was looking around the kitchen trying to find him. But she wasn't moving about the room, merely seeing if she could spot him from where she stood.

Hopping across the floor he leapt up and clung to her night gown as she turned to the stairs and started heading her way up.


	7. Chapter 7

Savanna scanned the breakfast nook frowning, uncertain as to whether or not she had heard what she thought she did. She could of sworn she saw the Wizard/cricket fly off into the gardens, how had it gotten into the house? How was it possible for such a tiny creature to get to the door and get inside in such a short amount of time?

Turning to the stairs, frustratingly defeated, she slowly dragged her feet up the winding flight of steps back to her bed. She was beyond exhausted, and the next day was back to classes and sleep was a necessity.

She shuffled back to her bedroom behind the girls as they were on their way to theirs. Madison, however, felt it necessary to lunge out like a burrowing spider and catch Savanna off guard, hauling her into the younger sister's room. "What is your problem!?"

"You have to tell me who you met last night" She stood with her arms crossed under her chest, her weight shifted slightly to one leg, and a menacing grin spread across her lips.

"I met nobody" She could hear the lie the moment she uttered it, and she knew that Madison could hear it too.

"You're lying…" she sang it as if it were a teasing game to not tell.

Savanna didn't want to play, she was afraid to play. She knew where that game would lead. "I don't care, I'm not telling you" Savanna walked towards Madison's door, only to be blocked as Madison stepped in front of it leaning against the door frame.

"Nuh-uh, you have to tell me little miss" she shook her head and grinned only wider.

Savanna felt her heart hammering harder in her chest. If she couldn't get away Madison would eventually spell her to spill everything, and then she'd be in greater trouble than earlier for sneaking outside to 'play with bugs'. "Madison, I just want to go to bed."

Madison shook her head, with that stupid grin still spread wide across her face. "You have to tell me first, and then I'll let you go."

She stopped leaning against the door to grab Savanna by the shoulders and push her back to the bed and force her to sit.

They both frowned in thought and looked away from one another to look about the room. She could have sworn she heard something. Madison appeared to have heard it as well.

Ignoring the thought they both looked back to one another where Madison squeezed her shoulders and held her pinned down on her butt. "Tell me what he looked like. Was he cute?"

"NO!" Savanna was only getting all the more frustrated with her sister.

"So he was ugly?"

"Stop guessing Madison and let me go to my room!"

Frowning, the older sister stood straighter and crossed her arms under her chest. "Well you're no fun." Then, as if catching a thought in her head, she grinned again, "unless of course he's gorgeous and you're just hiding him from everyone because you want to greedily keep him to yourself"

"He's not mine!" Clapping her hands over her mouth, Savanna couldn't help but pale at the realization of what she had just done.

"AH HA!" Madison stood straight and proud pointing her finger in Savanna's face. "You Did find a guy!"

The tears started welling up in her eyes and the lump in her throat grew. She was going to be caught. They were going to punish her to no end. How could she be such a fool?

Madison dropped her finger from pointing and frowned staring back at her. "Are you crying?"

Covering her face from the horrible shame she began sobbing as the lump in her throat crawled out into a wail. "I'm so sorry" she choked out the sobs, shaking with her lip quivering. "I didn't mean to"

Madison sat down beside Savanna and wrapped an arm around her shoulders and softly squeezed, "Its ok sweetie I didn't mean to hurt your feelings, but you can't get attached to these men. All they want is to bed you and throw you out, so that's what we do to them first."

The drowning sense of panic quickly lifted as she soon realized that her crying had solved the entire situation. She near got away with murder. "It is?" she choked back a sob, still completely baffled that some tears had gotten her through being exposed.

"Of course sweetie" Madison squeezed her shoulders again in a loving caring manner. However, an odd sense of worry crawled up her spine. Something warned her about Madison. Something was wrong with her. "I promise not to share the man you have picked out. You can have him all to yourself next Saturday night." She grinned and squeezed her side.

She seemed like the normal Madison… but her gut told her otherwise. Something was wrong with the way she was acting. She wasn't acting any different than she usually did. But it was as if she wasn't herself, and yet was.

"Cause you know what?"

Savanna dabbed her eyes with the collar of her night gown and sniffed back some tears and snot "What?"

"I have a man I wouldn't mind bedding again and sharing." She licked her lips almost wide-eyed.

"Yeah?" Savanna said it with an inflectional question in her tone, but she didn't want to know about Madison's sexual explorations or sideways bed adventures. The woman was notoriously the craziest sex-fiend in the house.

Leaning in closer, Madison softly – and awkwardly – rubbed Savanna's side and whispered into her ear. "If you need practice before taking your man to bed you can share mine."

Pulling away and off the bed she turned and wrapped her arms around her stomach slowly shaking her head and laughing nervously. "No… no I'm fine."

"Awe…" Madison gave her a sad puppy face and pouting lip "… is Savvy the virgin not wanting to play?"

Savanna backed away to the door shaking her head as she left, nervously laughing even more yet, and near shrieked when she bumped into the door handle. "No, I just… it's not that… Bye!" Savanna quickly opened and shut the door behind her and hurried to her bedroom and swiftly and silently shut and locked her door behind her. She wasn't going to leave for the rest of the day.

Her skin was crawling from head to toe and she had a chill up her spine that told her that nothing good would come of speaking with Madison again for the rest of the day.

Flopping down onto the bed she scrunched her nose and strained her ears to listen. She could have sworn she heard something again.


	8. Chapter 8

Ben screamed as the blonde girl sat down onto the bed, flattening him under her weight. Thankfully the soft cushion of the bed and the curves of her body allowed him to survive being crushed. His back left leg was pinned under her ass. He wasn't sure which cheek but it hardly mattered when his very livelihood was at stake. If she so much as shifted weight he'd be dead.

Thankfully, she shifted just the smallest amount, and he was able to pull his leg back to his body. Staying as low to the bed as he could he was able to avoid tickling her backside, or wherever it was he was situated. In his panic to jump free from her night gown he had fallen to the bed before she sat. He could have been stuck under her thigh or knee for all he knew.

Words were exchanged that were muffled by her sitting on him and by the fact that their voices were too deep. It wasn't long before she began standing. Hooking his hands into the weave of her night gown he was quickly pulled from the bed and around to face away from the other person in the room. Thankfully he remained unnoticed.

The girl backed up towards the door and a growing sense of panic told him she would use her butt to push it open. Thankfully she had jumped when the doorknob hit her in the back. She opened the door and quickly made her way through the hallway, through another door, and turned locking it behind her. As soon as he knew he could scurry around he quickly crawled across her side and away from her ass to begin crawling up her stomach so that he might grab her attention. By crawling up her chest she'd at least see him and not sit on him again.

But of course, she didn't sit. "AHH!" His scream was cut short by the muffling of her belly as she had leaped onto the bed crashing down on top of him.

The sudden light and lifting of weight told him that she had rolled off. But it was hardly comforting for his entire insect body ached and crunched if he so much as twitched or tried to flex a limb. Groaning was his only form of communication for a few moments until he could gain the strength to breathe. It was odd how an insect inhaled oxygen. It didn't quite have lungs like a human. The effect was, essentially, the same. He could drown or have his lungs crushed in his small form.

Thankfully, his body was within the realm of repair. He just had to get back to his body. A flick of his leg and the dead swinging weight of a foot hitting the side of his carapace told him he wouldn't be jumping.

"Oh my god, I'm so sorry" a large finger touched his stomach and a tender grip – if it could be called tender for the fact that he was being lifted by his damaged appendages – picked him up off the bed and into the warm and soft hand of the girl he had been following. His coin was lost; he had dropped it in the bushes below her window. His body was broken, she had flattened it. They were still weren't anywhere closer to finding out where his brother had gone.

Why was he working with her? Wouldn't it just be easier to try and track down his fellow council member? Yes, they lived in secret from one another in order to protect themselves from being massacred by a Witch's coven and their numbers being shredded to near nothing, but he still had a better chance alone than with her constantly getting him near killed.

"Please just take me back to my body"

"What? I can barely hear you, you're too quiet."

Groaning, Ben used a small amount of magic to further strengthen and amplify the conjured human voice box he had given the cricket. "Take me back to my body so I can be in Human form again"

"You're body? I don't understand. Aren't you a Wizard?"

He hated that Wizards and Witches had such different forms of magic. "I am a Wizard's consciousness inside of a Cricket!"

"Alright, alright, you don't have to be so snippy."

He was lifted into the air, and the motion of ground moving gave him a very human nauseous feeling, one he shouldn't have felt. "Uh-oh"

The motion stopped. "Uh-oh? What uh-oh?"

"I think I've been in this form for too long."

"What does that mean?" He was lifted higher up and he could see her nose and eyes peering down close to him.

"It means my time as a cricket will soon be permanent if I don't get back to my body." He didn't like the thought of permanently being stuck as a cricket. He could barely perform any magic in such a feeble form, and it was so easily broken.

"Where is your body?"

"Beyond the gardens in the bushes…" She whimpered in her throat, "… on the other side of the fence facing the waters" she whimpered again and groaned in her throat.

It felt like his gut lifted as she crashed down to the floor and sat leaning against the bed. "Easy on the swift movements or I'll throw up!"

"Stop Yelling At Me!"

A heavy knocking on the door set his mind to thundering. "Savanna who are you talking to?"

Oh, how lovely, he was going to have visitors and they thought their fellow Witch was a loon talking to a cricket. Or worse yet, they'd put talking cricket together with the Wizard in the bar and squash him under a boot or slipper.

That's exactly how he wanted to die and what he wanted written on his tombstone. "Here lies Ben; he died as a cricket, swatted by a newspaper"

"I'm on the phone!"

Ben swiveled his flexible neck in order to better see the girl. His vision was blurred from the distance but he could see her grabbing her phone off of the receiver and dropping it down between her feet as she held Ben out in her palm.

"OK Savvy sweetie"

She obviously was far more capable of hiding the truth than he was. He would have been stuck dead cold without an answer.

"What am I going to do?"

Ben hardly had much time left, and a great deal of distance to cover. It took him several minutes to hop to the house and that was when his legs worked. To have to crawl back would take an hour if not more, and he couldn't take the risk of being stepped on, swatted, or even eaten by cats or birds or other insects.

His life was on borrowed time. "I don't know but we have to do it fast"

The loud clack of the door unlocking and the gust of wind from the door opening sent a chill up Ben's carapace causing him to hold dead still.

There was the light thundering of feet across rug as the new person approached, and whimpering and sobbing from the girl holding him in her seemingly massive hand. "I killed him…"

Ben was lightly touched by a massive index finger, tilting him to the side. The hand retreated and he fell back again, playing dead as a possum. He couldn't help but laugh inside of himself, a cricket playing dead.

"Awe, sweetheart, Scarlet told you not to play with bugs"

"I didn't mean too" the young girl closed her hands around Ben hiding him from sight. "I wanted to see if I had hurt him when I opened my window this morning," she gasped and choked back a sob "and when I brought him back up to my room I accidentally sat on him" the poor girl whimpered and then broke down shaking, crying and gasping.

The girl must have shifted or been pulled into a hug, because his balance suddenly shifted and he was nearly dropped from her hands. Flustered, he opened his carapace and fluttered his wings in protest of her sudden and quick movements.

Dead silence encompassed the room as the girl that had been holding him gasped and calmed herself. The one that was comforting her was still hushing her and he could still feel and hear the heavy movements of their bodies… but otherwise the room had gone silent.

He too, felt the knowing calm of success. He had wings.

"Jessica?"

"Yeah sweetie?"

"Can you take him to the far end of the gardens?"

There was a short pause before he felt his weight shift again inside of her hands. He didn't know what was taking place but he guessed the young blonde to be hugged. "Why do you want me to take a squashed bug to the far end of the gardens?" He could hear the heavy questioning in the tone of her voice. It wasn't likely to work.

"I killed him!" the pretty blonde sounded hysterical. "I don't want him to just be thrown in the garbage I want him put in the far end of the gardens, that way if the cat gets him I won't see it!"

There was a heavy sigh and a slight shift in weight again. "Savvy you're such a soft-hearted little girl"

Ben breathed out a soft sigh, knowing that he'd be taken to his body in time to survive.

Light flooded in again as he was uncovered. Staying as stiff and as still as he could, Ben tried not to scream out in pain when he was lifted by his crooked and broken legs to be placed in a new hand, one that smelled much different from the first. There was something else he didn't have before, scent glands. He was reverting to his Human form inside of the cricket. He'd undoubtedly be dead within the next half hour if he didn't get back to his body.

When his left back leg was ripped off and he was dropped into the new palm, it took every ounce of mental control to not howl. It felt as if his leg had been ripped off at the knee and everything inside his thigh yanked out with it.

"Don't Hurt Him!"

"He's already dead…"

"SO! Stop pulling his legs off!"

Ben wanted to roar from the depth of his lungs to add his own voice to the mixture but he knew it wouldn't be for the best. Remaining as still and as silent as possible, he waited for the two to finish their shouting match before silently exhaling out his pain.

He knew that a cricket didn't quite breathe the same as a human, but his human form and his human thoughts and feelings were returning far faster than he had anticipated.

"I'll go put him in the gardens, ok?"

"The Far gardens"

"Yes," she let out an exasperated sigh as she said it, "the far gardens."

The heavy and unkind bouncing and jarring movements of her hand and the swift blurs and changes in color and scenery told him he was being taken out of the bedroom and into the hall.

"What's going on?"

"Just a dead bug"

"What kind of dead bug?" the voice was further in distance.

"Never mind!" The loud voice rattled against his antennas

The woman thundered down the steps and he rolled and bounced around in her hand, almost falling off at one point. She didn't even try to catch him. She had little care that he was 'dead'. The fear that he'd simply be tossed into the garbage was becoming more and more real.

As they entered the kitchens he could see the glass doors to the outside, the fresh air and grass, his safety.

A loud and low meow perked his antennas and set his tiny heart to thundering. He was going to be eaten…


	9. Chapter 9

Savanna stood by her window wiping her eyes as she waited for Jessica to emerge from the breakfast nook into the gardens. He had heard her walking down the hallway of the dorms and thunder down the narrow spiraling staircase. But she was taking far too long in the kitchens.

Biting her lip she clutched her nightgown praying that she didn't feed the wizard to that deranged and disgusting black cat Muggles.

When she saw Jessica step out into the gardens heading towards the far end with her palm held up, she breathed a sigh of relief.

"You really are a sad sap you know that Savvy?"

Savanna clutched her chest and jumped turning to see Madison leaning against her door frame with her arms folded across her chest.

"You got all weepy over a damn bug"

"I didn't mean to kill him"

"Him?" Madison snorted. "What did you do? Name it?"

Savanna frowned and folded her arms shaking her head. "No, now you're just being mean"

"You probably tried kissing him hoping he'd turn into a prince too." Madison stood back from leaning against Savanna's door frame and then shook her head turning around to leave.

Savanna couldn't help but smirk slightly. He was a somewhat handsome young Wizard. And he was going to turn back if he made it to his body in time. The only thing that was missing was that she hadn't kissed the cricket.

She scrunched her nose at the thought, "Why would I kiss a cricket?"

Madison barked back from her bedroom. "Did you name him Jiminy?" and then screamed in laughter before slamming her door shut, still laughing as the door was closed.

Savanna groaned in her throat and slammed her door shut to drown out the howling coming from the wench's room.

Flopping back down onto her bed she couldn't help but worry about the Wizard. She didn't know his name still, but she wanted to. It was better than constantly thinking of him as a Wizard… it seemed almost like an insult, a dirty name.

Sighing and burying her head into her pillows, she could only hope he made it back to his body in one piece, and alive.


	10. Chapter 10

Ben swerved and beat his wings as hard as he could as he dodged the cat from lunging at him again.

It would jump through the air and swipe at him with its claws. It would howl and hiss and spit at him as it tried to claw him down and eat him.

The cat landed, pounced and dove up at him from below. He had no choice but to pull back and reverse direction, pushing him further from his body.

Making a heavy quick turn he was able to avoid being clawed into pieces again by the dreaded Muggles.

The cat pounced, again and again, each time narrowly missing him.

"Muggles what are you doing in there?"

As soon as the cat turned to look back to the bushes, Ben made a dive for the metal gates separating him from the Cliffside and waters.

The cat dove for him the instant he bolted. Had it not been for the split second the cat had been distracted, he would have been dead.

Shooting between the bars and out into the open sunlight and his body laying in the grass, Ben felt a sense of relief as he quickly ignited the transference spell allowing him to jump his mind back into his body.

No sooner had he returned to his own form did he sneeze and sneeze and sneeze again as ants had started a line up into his nose. Regaining the sensation in his hands, he began swatting the small black bugs from his face. He coughed and choked and spat them out of his mouth as they scurried in a panic.

Putting one finger to the side of his nose he plugged it and breathed heavily firing snot ants out. Then he did the same to his other nostril, firing out ants and antennas and limbs.

"Blasted bugs"

Shaking his head free of grass, bush leaves, and ants he slowly stood and brushed himself off.

Looking to the gate to where he had emerged, he saw the cat on the other side of the bars, glaring back at him with yellow eyes and a piece of cricket caught in the fur of its chin.

He also saw something else in that cat. He saw intelligence. There was knowledge in the cat's eyes. There was danger there.

It had seen him…

Looking up and to the bushes, he couldn't help but feel a pair of eyes glaring in at him, human eyes… gifted eyes.

Turning to the cliffs he quickly opened a teleportation event and stepped through to emerge on the sandy beach bellow. He kept a brisk pace as he walked along the shoreline heading towards the opposite end of the short beach, a fair mile from the house and the grounds.

He couldn't simply just teleport from where he was. He needed to create several teleportation events in order to cover his trail. His ancestors learned a horrible price many years ago; when one of their own was trapped inside of his own teleportation and slowly ripped to his core elements over a period of many hours. His final emergence from his teleportation resulted in a hail of body parts, blood, and tiny bits of matter. It was as if a cadaver had been stuffed with explosives and detonated.

He hardly wanted to suffer such a gruesome fate, and didn't want to leave any teleportation events open to prying and tampering. Once he made it to the cliffs and rocks on the other end of the beach, he crouched down behind a rock and began writing into the sand a simple spell that would lock and protect his teleportation from being tampered with.

He wrote the correct runes and letters into the sand and eyed the shoreline wondering if he should also write a spell to protect the sand from being disturbed by the waters.

Looking back to the Cliffside he couldn't help but notice a small cat glaring down at him.

He needed a better idea. Brushing some of the sand destroying the runes, he re-wrote some of the circle and then added a second circle around that. There was no way he was allowing them to harm or impede his return.

Standing inside of the circle, he began summoning the energy necessary.


	11. Chapter 11

Scarlet opened her eyes, pulling her sight back from Muggles as the feline stood on the Cliffside watching the Wizard vanish into a distortion of light and air. The cat could see magic far better than any human could. Felines were gifted with sight, and therefore were a common familiar of Witches.

Thanking Muggles with a brief thought, she then turned on her bed and swung her legs over the side before slowly sitting up and then standing eyeing her bookcase. She needed to figure out how to trap the Wizard in his own magic.

Using her finger she slowly eyed her way along the rows until she spotted the "Compendium of Traps" in its red bindings and gold lettering.

Despite her best efforts, the youngest of her girls had been spelled by the Wizard. She needed to find the counter-spell and initiate it. Unfortunately, that also required something of the Wizard's and a working knowledge of the Masculine form of Mystical energies.

Thinking back to Muggles, she called the Cat to her presence. She needed her feline friend to cough up the insect she had eaten.

"Come in" she responded to the light knock at her door.

Jessica, she knew it to be the brunette based on the perfume she always wore, silently stepped into the room, careful not to make too much noise. She was always a thunder-foot, except around Scarlet. "You called for me?"

"Yes dear, keep an eye on Savanna for me?"

"I will"

"Good girl" Opening her heavy tome upon her desk, she swiveled her reading light overhead and opened to the index.

As she fingered down the list, she stopped when she spotted a footnote that appealed far more to her than simply breaking the spell the Wizard had cast upon her youngest student. She wouldn't de-spell her sister… she'd make sure their adversary never cast magic again.


	12. Chapter 12

Devlin went about his apartment touching up the imperfections and damage that had been done while he had bedded the girl. He needed to replace all his light-bulbs and kettle. He needed to patch up the holes in his walls and get new bed sheets. His current ones were ablaze with Mana, mystical energy, and sex.

Despite all the damage, he had been successful. He had seeded one of the sisters. The only thing he could hope for was that the girl he had seeded wouldn't be discovered, nor did he want his magic being traced.

He wouldn't only have the hell of an entire Coven raining down upon him, but the entire Council as well. His intention was to wield the Coven as his own harem, and overthrow the Council.

The women of their race laced themselves with layers upon layers of magic; the men merely barricaded themselves with their strength of will alone. One trap, one counter spell, one poison would undo most Wizards. To have an entire Coven on his side would easily allow him to overthrow the Council with a loss of but a mere handful of girls. Two or three of them would die at the most.

Devlin stood on his countertop pulling the shards of kettle from the ceiling and contemplated his next move. He had ordered his newly acquired slave Witch to bring to him another wench to enthrall. It was only a matter of time before the next would arrive, and then the next.

Ben was his only problem. He had to eliminate the sniveling little bitch. The boy would undoubtedly run to the Council the moment he had proof.

His only question was how he would eliminate a fellow Council member without making it appear as a murder. Pulling the last piece of metal out of the ceiling he dropped it down to the countertop before dropping down to sit on his counter and look about the room.

He couldn't use any magic. It'd undoubtedly be detected by the decrepit old Lennon. Poisons would raise far too much suspicion. He needed a natural incident to take place. He needed a perfect concoction of events to take place in order to throw his fellow members off trail long enough for him to gather his full strength.

"How do you kill a wizard without it appearing suspicious Icarus" His crow familiar fluttered to his window sill to land and listen to its masters questioning.

He paced his apartment, walking from his master suite to the living room and kitchen. He needed to throw off the Council and keep the Coven at ease without raising alarms.

How was he to do it?

A knock on his door, and the late hour of the arrival told him that visitors had arrived. The brief tickle in the back of his mind, told him it was his slave.

Grinning, he knew he had told her not to return unless she was bringing another.


	13. Chapter 13

Lauren bit her lip as she slowly opened the door and peered into the massive apartment that Madison had taken her to. They went ever supposed to leave the house without Scarlet, but she was far too hungry to go the weekend without having at least some form of enjoyment, and Madison couldn't stop blabbing about some man with a 'gift' in his pants.

It was true, she'd prefer a chick with a nice set of cans on her chest and a gentle curve to her figure and a tight crotch to lick and an ass to smack, but a massive dick was sometimes in order.

That night, she needed both, and Madison was one of the few girls in the house willing to have fun with her.

Madison pushed the door all the way open leaving Lauren feeling slightly awkward about standing in the doorway of a stranger's apartment. Of course, Madison being as brash and as outspoken about everything, she pushed Lauren in through the door and almost face first into a tall man's chest.

He stood at least a head taller than her with slight stubble to his chin. Short dark chocolate brown hair that had been styled to stand in short spikes and he was ruggedly handsome overall.

Sliding her hand down his abdomen she cupped his crotch and squeezed reassuring herself of what Madison had been bolstering. It was true, he certainly was gifted.

His meaty hands were large enough to grip her hips and his arms were strong enough to pick her up off the wooden flooring.

Biting her lip, Lauren wrapped her legs around his waist and squeezed his sides with her thighs. She was greeted in kind with his hands squeezing her ass.

The instant rush of blood that flooded her system set a flutter in her heart and belly and urged her into wanting more. It was such a simple touch, to have her bum squeezed, but there was more to it than a squeeze.

It was a greeting; it was the teasing touch to release pheromones. Like flowers ready to pollinate, she could feel his excitement growing. There was energy to him. He breathed it and she could taste it without her lips even touching his.

Madison's chest pressed up against her back, and her soft lips sent a shiver racing up and down Lauren's spine "oh god" the moan escaped her and she hadn't the wherewithal to contain it. Her inhibitions were already lost. The walls knocked down and the doors taken with the wind.

Lauren began rocking her hips against the man when Madison's hands slid around her sides and down between her legs. "Oh god" she couldn't keep her eyes open. Her body arched and her lungs moaned, she was out of body, simply existing in the ecstasy. And to think, they hadn't yet started.

Her clothes were being removed quickly and she was caught in the waves of the drunken heights they were both putting her in. She almost felt drugged. How could anything possibly feel so good?


	14. Chapter 14

Ben eased his way up the steps to the 5th floor of the housing complex. The suites were quite grand. There were approximately 6 to a floor, and the floors were hardly considered small. The building itself, was hardly considered small. The main lobby alone was greater than that of a football field.

No hard guesses as to where the girls had gone. He had sensed them enter the building and had been sensing their energies, following them from the Covenant. To have them simply vanish from sight as they entered a single room was a bit of a dead giveaway. He just needed to climb one more flight and then he'd be on the 5th floor.

A slight wave of nausea held him from advancing the next flight. "Lay off the street stand hotdogs old Ben and exercise a bit more" burping and lightly tapping his fist to his chest, he reassured himself that his quick night meal would last and hold. He didn't need to heave in the middle of an incantation.

It wouldn't only foul the magic and possibly cause serious harm, but it'd also foul whatever he heaved on, and seriously harm the coloring if it were fabric.

Taking a deep breath he steadied his stomach before tracing a lightly barrier spell in the air and stepping into it, letting the warmth of it coat his skin.

Feeling steadier and stronger, Ben took to the stairs at a light and leisurely pace. He didn't want to set off any alarms or traps that Devlin may have set. No telling how intricately placed and dynamic his spell work and traps were.

Reaching the fire escape to the stairs, Ben gently touched the door to see if there were any bindings or traps or magic in play. Nothing appeared out of the ordinary.

Pressing on the door he allowed it to open of its own accord. No need to expend any unnecessary energy. No alarms, no sirens, nothing went off audibly or inaudibly. He sensed all things in the building to find nothing out of place. He even sensed a cat on the floor above him grooming itself.

That's when the thought occurred to him. What if Devlin had a familiar? It could be as small as a bug, like when he was a cricket.

Taking a grander sweep with a finer tooth comb he scanned the entire building. Besides finding a small nest of ants in the far left suite in the pantry, there was nothing besides the grooming cat.

He slowly eased out into the hallway, and then gently closed the door behind him, again, listening for alarms. Not a single ring.

It completely eluded him. Why wouldn't there be any traps or mystical barriers or Familiars out on the prowl? Wouldn't the wizards that lived in the building want to know exactly what was taking place inside their domiciles?

Slowly walking down the hall he eyed each door, peering in for a quick peek using his sight. There was an old lady watching television, a young couple preparing to put their infant child to bed, another old lady watching television.

Pausing, Ben slowly turned and walked back down the hall to eye the energy of the old lady. He then turned and walked back to the second… they were identical… not even twins had identical energies. "Clever Devlin, Clever"

Not even Ben had that sort of magic protecting his small apartment. If he stood outside his door and tried to look in, all he got was a blank white wall in his mind. It was the barrier that had been set in place by the council, the barrier that was meant to hide Wizard's from the prying eyes of Witches. Supposedly, they couldn't see through solid walls or doors or sense out the energies of others unless touching them or joined in a power circle.

That was when the lack of mystical traps and alarms made sense to him. Why announce his existence within the building to others? The point was to remain hidden and concealed, not to surround his home in barbwire and moats.

The problem was trying to determine which one was the fake. Was the first old lady the fake, or was it the second?

Standing in front of the young couple's door, he looked from one to the other, watching carefully. It came to him when he noticed that the walls to the second old ladies door were solid and all he saw was white wall.

"Sometimes my young student" he said in as old and as Waverly a voice as he could mimic, "it is not what you see, but what you don't, that is important"

Nodding in approval at having used the wise words of Council Master Lennon's teachings, Ben walked towards the obvious door, and then prepared himself to dive in.

The nerves alone set his stomach to rolling and a wave of chills up his spine. "God keep it together, you're going to throw down with a wizard and likely two witches"

The thought that even if he failed, he would at least expose the corruption purely through the amount of mystical mayhem he'd cause, gave him little solace to the knowledge he was about to die.


	15. Chapter 15

Backing up to the wall opposite the door, he prepared to ram it and barge in. It was his only advantage; the element of surprise.

Pushing off from the wall, dropping his head and shoulder, he dug his feet down and into the rug and barreled forth. The door burst open with great resistance. He didn't even have enough momentum to carry himself through into the suite.

Ben fell to the floor with an aching pain firing through his skull and numbness down his arm. The door tried to slam shut, striking the side of his leg twice, before Ben could roll over onto his back and pull his legs free from the violently swinging wood.

Turning to look towards the bed he was transfixed to see Devlin, and two women, stark naked, and caught in a vortex of wind and magic. Lamps, pencils, paper, dust, and all forms of debris circled and left and joined the swirling cyclone of power.

He could hear a low hum growing to a high pitch as the three of them gyrated and ground against each other.

The one woman beneath Devlin threw her head back, gripped the sheets, and screamed at the top of her lungs, only to have her voice deafened by the cascading eruption and release of pent up energy.

The vortex collapsed like an exploding star, sending its energy out in all directions. Ben had only a moment within which to cover his head and tuck himself in tight before the debris rained down upon him.

Pain fired through his hands and arms and some of his back and legs as shrapnel bits of household items cut and scraped and bounced off his body.

Pulling his hands away he examined a pencil that had partially buried itself in the back of his right hand. There went any spell work involving two hands.

Quickly crawling over to the island countertop in the kitchen he just narrowly avoided being hit with a red slithering stream of Fire and light that shot past. Had he been hit with it, he would have been severely injured or killed. How Devlin had the strength to throw Wizard's Fire after seeding a Witch was beyond him, but he apparently still had enough to duel.

"Welcome my little brother!"

Ben figured it couldn't hurt to use a little small talk as a distraction while he thought of an escape plan. He was clearly outclassed, and needed help. "Quite the welcoming to have a Mana charged explosion set off as I entered the door sending shards of debris and a pencil into my hand!"

Devlin laughed, chuckling and breathing heavily. He was tired. More tired than Ben had thought. "Wasn't expecting you so soon little Benny"

He couldn't help but snarl and grumble in his throat, He hated that name so much. Turning to sit up he quickly got up to his knees, threw his hand over the table top and aimed his focus on a fork that had fallen upon the countertop. His intention was to fire it like a projectile.

The results… were less than satisfactory. The fork lazily skipped off the countertop and then skidded across the floor to come to a stop hardly even half the distance to the open concept bedroom where Devlin stood.

All of them looked down at the fork in bewilderment. The two Witches, Devlin, and Ben, all frowned at the fork.

Devlin raised his hand, sent a wave of his energy out into the fork and fired it like a hell bound missile. Straight through the island that Ben had been hiding behind, grazing his left ribs, and then burying into the metal surface of the stovetop.

Ben howled and clapped his pencil pegged hand to his side and turned to sit back down behind the counter. Re-focusing his energy, he looked to the dish towel hanging by the stove racking, and tried to summon it to his hand. It fluttered as if billowing in a light wind, and then fell again.

He re-focused, shaking his hand and ignoring the pain racking his body, and reached for the dish towel, the corner barely moved. "Oh god"

"Oh Dear me Benny… have you lost your power?"

Ben shook out his hand and closed his eyes dipping down into everything he had. But there was nothing. He hadn't even the energy to sense out where Devlin stood in the apartment.

The last thing he heard, the last thing he saw, was Devlin peering over the countertop with a red glowing finger, and a grinning "Boo!".

Devlin screamed and cheered and danced and clapped his hands together in excitement as the nuisance Ben exploded into tiny bits of man flesh, splattering and covering his kitchen in red. He couldn't even distinguish organ from skin the matter was so finely destroyed.

The best part about the whole mess was that he could clean it up and dispose of the body without anyone ever knowing the young Wizard was missing. He had tried to find a way to kill the brat without it looking like murder. Nobody ever knew what happened in one Wizard's housing to the next. He could create a hell storm of energies and none of the others would notice, and they hadn't.

He had gotten away with murder, and none of them would ever know. Laughing until it hurt to breathe was beyond acceptable. He was going to get Everything he always wanted. A Harem of women to call his own, an entire council of weathered old Wizard's bowing to his every command, and the setup to control all of humanity and their petty existence.

Mageocracy would return, and he would become the new god.


End file.
